UCLA Department of Psychology

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Experiencing adversity in childhood and adolescence, including stressful life events (SLEs), may accelerate the pace of development, leading to adverse mental and physical health. However, most research on adverse early experiences and biological aging (BA) in youths relies on cross-sectional designs. In 171 youths followed for approximately 2 years, we examined if SLEs over follow-up predicted rate of change in two BA metrics: epigenetic age and Tanner stage. We also investigated if rate of change in BA was associated with changes in depressive symptoms over time. Youths aged 8-16 years at baseline self-reported Tanner stage and depressive symptoms at baseline and follow-up and provided saliva samples for DNA at both assessments. Horvath epigenetic age estimates were derived from DNA methylation data measured with the Illumina EPIC array. At follow-up, contextual threat interviews were administered to youths and caregivers to assess youths' experiences of past-year SLEs. Interviews were objectively coded by an independent rating team to generate a SLE impact score, reflecting the severity of all SLEs occurring over the prior year. Rate of change in BA metrics was operationalized as change in epigenetic age or Tanner stage as a function of time between assessments. Higher objective SLE impact scores over follow-up were related to a greater rate of change in epigenetic age (β = 0.21, p = .043). Additionally, among youths with lower-but not higher-Tanner stage at baseline, there was a positive association of SLE impact scores with rate of change in Tanner stage (Baseline Tanner Stage × SLE Impact Score interaction: β = - 0.21, p = .011). A greater rate of change in epigenetic age was also associated with higher depressive symptom levels at follow-up, adjusting for baseline symptoms (β = 0.15, p = .043). Associations with epigenetic age were similar, although slightly attenuated, when adjusting for epithelial (buccal) cell proportions. Whereas much research in youths has focused on severe experiences of early adversity, we demonstrate that more commonly experienced SLEs during adolescence may also contribute to accelerated BA. Further research is needed to understand the long-term consequences of changes in BA metrics for health.

Conduct problems are increasingly prevalent in girls and they uniquely predict negative outcomes. Yet, few reliable risk factors for aggression and violence in girls and women have been identified. Although preliminary evidence suggests peer relationships may be central to the development of youth conduct problems, especially in girls, rigorous interactive models of peer risk and protective factors for conduct problems are lacking. Based on 3104 10-13-year-old girls in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development study, we tested the independent associations of separate peer risk factors (i.e., relational aggression victimization, physical aggression victimization, and deviant peer affiliation) with multidimensional conduct problems, including their moderation by peer support. Being the victim of relational aggression, being the victim of physical aggression, and deviant peer affiliation were each positively associated with conduct problems and perpetration of aggression whereas peer support was negatively associated with youth report conduct problems and perpetration of physical aggression. Further, elevated peer support significantly attenuated the association of being the victim of relational aggression with teacher-rated conduct problems. These results highlight the sensitivity of conduct problems to peer risk factors and suggest that peer support designates important configurations of risk that differentially relate to conduct problems in girls.

It is estimated that 13% of the world's children and adolescents have a mental health disorder.¹ Fortunately, psychotherapy interventions are effective at improving mental health symptoms and associated functional difficulties.² However, while the research literature on the efficacy of youth psychotherapy is robust, it may not be generalizable to all populations and across all contexts, particularly given the limited diversity of the research samples with which they have been tested.

We examined the role of different types of similarity in both analogical reasoning and recognition memory. On recognition tasks, people more often falsely report having seen a recombined word pair (e.g., flower: garden) if it instantiates the same semantic relation (e.g., is a part of) as a studied word pair (e.g., house: town). This phenomenon, termed relational luring, has been interpreted as evidence that explicit relation representations-known to play a central role in analogical reasoning-also impact episodic memory. We replicate and extend previous studies, showing that relation-based false alarms in recognition memory occur after participants encode word pairs either by making relatedness judgments about individual words presented sequentially, or by evaluating analogies between pairs of word pairs. To test alternative explanations of relational luring, we implemented an established model of recognition memory, the Generalized Context Model (GCM). Within this basic framework, we compared representations of word pairs based on similarities derived either from explicit relations or from lexical semantics (i.e., individual word meanings). In two experiments on recognition memory, best-fitting values of GCM parameters enabled both similarity models (even the model based solely on lexical semantics) to predict relational luring with comparable accuracy. However, the model based on explicit relations proved more robust to parameter variations than that based on lexical similarity. We found this same pattern of modeling results when applying GCM to an independent set of data reported by Popov, Hristova, and Anders (2017). In accord with previous work, we also found that explicit relation representations are necessary for modeling analogical reasoning. Our findings support the possibility that explicit relations, which are central to analogical reasoning, also play an important role in episodic memory.

Numerous investigations to date have established the benefits of expressing gratitude for improved psychological well-being and interpersonal relationships. Nevertheless, the social dynamics of gratitude remain understudied. Do the effects of gratitude differ when it is expressed privately, communicated directly to the benefactor one-to-one, or shared publicly? We tested this question in a preregistered intervention study. An ethnically and economically diverse sample of undergraduate students (N = 916) was randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions: (1) write gratitude letters and do not share them (private gratitude), (2) share gratitude one-to-one with benefactors via text (1-to-1 gratitude), (3) share gratitude publicly on social media (public gratitude), or (4) track daily activities (control). Participants were asked to complete their assigned activity four times with different people (as applicable) over the course of about a week. Overall, participants assigned to any digital gratitude intervention experienced improvements in state gratitude, positive emotions, negative emotions, elevation, connectedness, support, and loneliness, relative to controls. Relative to all other conditions, participants assigned to text their benefactors showed the biggest boosts in social connectedness and support. Our findings show that easily scalable digital gratitude interventions can advance the well-being of young college students.

Supplementary information

The purpose of the current study was to test the longitudinal association between disordered-eating symptoms (body dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, and bulimia) in adolescence (ages 12, 14, 16, 18, 19) and adulthood (age 40) in a sample of 883 white and Black women. We also investigated moderation by race. Adolescent symptoms at each time point significantly predicted adulthood symptoms for the Body Dissatisfaction and Drive for Thinness subscales for both Black and white women. Bulimia symptoms in adolescence predicted symptoms in adulthood; however, the effect was largely driven by white women. Although moderation was nonsignificant, among white women, bulimia symptoms at all adolescent time points predicted adulthood bulimia, but among Black women, only symptoms at ages 18 and 19 were predictive of adulthood bulimia. Results suggest that both Black and white women are susceptible to disordered eating and that symptoms emerging in adolescence can potentially follow women into midlife.

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Clinical trial registration information

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